Sixty-seven students have scored AIR 1 in the recently announced results of NEET UG 2024. While students and experts are anxious about the further impact this will have on cut-offs and admission, NTA explained that this has occurred due to a shift in NCERT books.
In the question paper of the Chemistry exam of NEET UG 2024, an atoms question was asked. Students had to choose one of the four options that fronted choices on which of the two statements listed in the question were correct.
The controversy arose when NTA noticed the challenges to the provisional answer key that two options had been marked as correct by NCERT in their old and new books.
As per the old NCERT book, the answer was “Atoms of each element are stable.” New NCERT claims the answer to be “atoms of most of the elements are stable.” In such case, “NTA was enforced to allot five marks to all the students who had marked either of the options.” “Due to this, marks of a total of 44 students increased from 715 to 720, which resulted in an increased number of toppers,” a senior NTA official told indianexpress.com.
Asked if this was the only reason for a record number of NEET UG toppers this year, NTA clarified that while it played a significant role, the “fact that the paper was comparatively easier this year and there was a massive increase in the number of registrations also played important roles in the increased number of toppers.”
The number of candidates who have registered for NEET UG this year is 23.81 lakh, against last year’s registration of 20.87 lakh. According to NTA, 9,96,393 male candidates, 13,31,321 female candidates, and 17 transgender candidates took the test. While overall attendance has been recorded at 96.94 percent, respectively, the attendance of male candidates was 96.92 percent and 96.96 percent for female candidates. The attendance stood at 94.44 percent for transgender candidates.
However, NTA has also refuted students’ claims that this can hurt opportunities for the general category students. “General students still have as many seats as they had earlier, and so do all other categories. Also, the exam was relatively easy so that nobody will face hardship,” added another official from NTA.